Archives for June 2013

Three months after Southcom commander Gen. John F. Kelly told the House Armed Services Committee that the United States needs to be “extremely concerned” about Iran’s expanding presence in the Western Hemisphere, the State Department has just informed Congress that Iran’s regional influence is “waning.”
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The State Department’s assertions come in a two-page unclassified annexto a long-awaited classified report to Congress mandated by the bipartisan Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama late last year. It directs the secretary of state to “conduct an assessment of the threats posed to the United States by Iran’s growing presence and activity in the Western Hemisphere and submit to the relevant congressional committees the results of the assessment and a strategy to address Iran’s growing hostile presence and activity in the Western Hemisphere.”

Granted, the bulk of the report is classified, but it is not difficult to conclude that its tone is unlikely to diverge much from the unclassified annex — and that is deeply disturbing.

Especially when just last month an Argentine prosecutor added to the growing paper trail on Iran’s nefarious activities in the Americas by releasing a 500-page reportdetailing how Iran has systematically built a clandestine intelligence network throughout the region “designed to sponsor, foster and execute terrorist attacks.

Mr. Assange—the antisecrecy-group founder who for the past year has been sheltered inside Ecuador’s London embassy—wrote to Ecuadorean officials Monday that he hoped his role in the Snowden matter hadn’t embarrassed the government, according to an internal Ecuadorean diplomatic correspondence obtained by Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Networks and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

But in the note, Mr. Assange also offered public-relations advice to top Ecuadorean officials about how to handle the crisis. Mr. Assange’s earlier efforts on Mr. Snowden’s behalf had prompted one diplomat to caution that Mr. Assange could be perceived as “running the show” in Ecuador.

As the Washington Examiner‘s Philip Klein recently reported: “Under Obamacare, businesses with over 50 workers that employ American citizens without offering them qualifying health insurance could be subject to fines of up to $3,000 per worker. But because newly legalized immigrants wouldn’t be eligible for subsidies on the Obamacare exchanges until after they become citizens – at least 13 years under the Senate bill – businesses could avoid such fines by hiring the new immigrants instead.”

Officials of this small Andean nation lashed back at attempts by U.S. lawmakers to use a set of trade preferences that expire at the end of July as a bargaining chip to push Ecuador, which says it’s considering an asylum request by Mr. Snowden, away from supporting him. Ecuador said it was unilaterally renouncing these trade preferences.

But the Ecuadorean government also reiterated that it hadn’t provided him travel papers that could aid his global journey to evade espionage charges in the U.S, casting fresh doubts about the tools that Mr. Snowden has at his disposal while he appears to remain holed up in the transit zone of a Moscow airport terminal.

The U.S. has revoked Mr. Snowden’s passport and, without any travel documents, it is unclear how he could fly out of Moscow.

This report contradicts Univision’s, which last night

posted images of what it said was a “safe pass” for temporary travel that had been apparently issued by Ecuador’s embassy in London to Mr. Snowden—a document he would need after U.S. officials said earlier this week they had canceled his passport.

It sounds to me that the Correa regime may be haggling over price with Snowden.

Mark my words, Correa’s not aiming for Hugo Chavez’s empty throne. Correa’s going to stay well away from that, and let Maduro and Cabello fight it out in Venezuela. IN the meantime, Correa is looking after Correa.

Venezuela has made polite noises to Snowden, but Snowden may have to adjust himself to some limitations (link in Spanish, via Daniel), such as keeping his mouth shut for fear of being sent to jail, and taking blackouts, food shortages and no toilet paper in stride.

Putin hasn’t thrown him out of the airport yet, but Putin’s not a guy you want to mess with, and the Ecuadorians would need Putin’s permission to transport him to and from the airport.

Then there are two more issues,

whether there was a country that would allow him free transit on his way to Ecuador, which has said it would consider granting him asylum, and whether he had the temporary travel documents to get there.

Why did Snowden pick Ecuador? Like Assange, he recognizes that President Rafael Correa is an anti-American leftist who has repeatedly clashed with Washington and has eagerly embraced U.S. adversaries. Indeed, Correa is a Hugo Chávez acolyte who reportedly receivedmoney from Colombian FARC terrorists during his 2006 presidential campaign; who in 2009 expelled a U.S. embassy official named Armando Astorga and forced the U.S. military to leave Manta air base (which had been used for anti-drug operations); who in 2011expelled U.S. ambassador Heather Hodges; who in 2012 withdrewEcuadorean troops from the U.S.-based Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and also threatened to expel USAID from Ecuador; and who boycotted the 2012 Summit of the Americas to protest the exclusion of Cuba. His government has also strengthened ties with Iran, and there is compelling evidence that the Iranians have used their close relationship with Ecuador to evade international sanctions and access the global financial system. Ecuadorean foreign minister Ricardo Patiño has called Iran a “strategic partner,” and Correa has defended the Iranian nuclear program.

As Ramiro Crespo of Quito-based Analytica Investmentstells the Washington Post, “Ecuador is looking to be an antagonist of the United States and looking for causes that will permit it to do that.” That’s why it granted asylum to Julian Assange, and that’s why it may soon grant asylum to Edward Snowden. Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Patiño condemned U.S. officials for their efforts to apprehend the NSA leaker. “The one who is denounced pursues the denouncer,” he said,according to the New York Times. “The man who tries to provide light and transparency to issues that affect everyone is pursued by those who should be giving explanations about the denunciations that have been presented.” For his part, President Correa tweeted that “we will analyze the Snowden case very responsibly and we will make with absolute sovereignty the decision that we believe is most appropriate.”

Given his anti-U.S. record and his desire to succeed the late Hugo Chávez as the leader of Latin America’s populist-left coalition, there is good reason to expect that Correa will approve Snowden’s request.

And, by the way, sheltering Julian Assange, a Swedish and Australian citizen, at the London embassy is nowhere near the same as granting asylum to an American, since,

How would you arrange to send a password to unlock encrypted files if you’re working alone?

For now, it looks like Edward Snowden may be stuck in Russia; the US revoked his passport, and, unless he has made other arrangements, his Russian transit visa (if he has one), may be about to expire, currently making him the world’s most famous illegal alien.